1st: Chng Wan Ling Kristine, 15, Fairfield Methodist
Surrender
She walked home from school wearily, almost fragilely, as if treading on invisible glass. There was a reluctance about her movements that made you stop and want to carry her schoolbag for her and ask if she was alright. The slouched shoulders, sallow skin and her downcast eyes were reminiscent of an old lady painfully hobbling to the market.
Get more sleep, you would probably urge her.
But you didn’t know about her dirty little secret. The moment she reached home, her pupils would spark and seemingly burst into flame, tilting up slowly and coming to rest on the one thing she loved. The corners of her mouth would then twitch, and, almost instantly, her cracked lips would stretch into a hollow smile, revealing her yellowed and chipped teeth; certainly not those befitting a student.
Her mother used to joke that she should’ve married her off as a baby, to her cot. But as the years passed, her sleeping became more frequent. Her grades dropped, leaving Es and Fs in the wake of once unsurprising As and Bs. She averaged 15 – 16 hours of sleep a day, before her mother finally began to realize that something was wrong. Something was wrong, with her only daughter.
Her trembling hands lifted the sheet, trepidation coursing through her veins. Ironically, the only time she ever felt alive was before she was about to go to sleep. With alarming speed, she slid onto the bed, feeling the firmness of the mattress cradle her limp body as the blanket covered her, settling like a light dusting of snow over an icy landscape. As she escaped into oblivion, the only thing she thought of was what she both craved and feared…
A shout stirred the quiet, provoking her into faint wakefulness.
‘Aiyo! Come ah, come ah, look at this idiot! Over here still sleeping! Want to fail all her exams one!’ The unceasing tirade jolted her, her consciousness skimming the thin surface of reality. ‘Aiya, keep quiet lah. She want to go ITE, let her go…’ her father, ever the peacemaker, tried to placate her mother, managing to shush her gradually. Their voices became softer, a melodic murmuring that accompanied her dreams. Untroubled, she slid back to where she came from, sleep proving itself better than reality once more.
The next morning, six a.m.
‘Riiiing!’
She gasped, a fish out of water, as her body jerked itself out of the pleasant haze. Her left eye popped open as the fluorescent light bulb hanging off the ceiling came into view. For a strained second, she held the gaze of the peeling paint with sheer willpower; after which, her upper eyelid gradually sunk down, resisting the efforts made to keep it in place. Open. Close. Open. Close.
After a few more tries, the fog penetrated her mind yet again. As her eyelid bore down, for the last time, she thought, helplessly:
No. NO! I need to go to school. I need to –
Her brain succumbed as it relaxed to the effect of the fog, slowly shutting down once more. Her arms would not work. Her legs would not thrash, or kick out, and at last –
She slept.
2nd: Tay Sing Ning Kaylynn, 14
FOOD – My Worst Enemy
“That’s 156 calories in a plain bagel and another 200 calories in a….”
No! Leila, don’t think about that. Food is life. You need food to stay alive. You promised Dr Hunington to stay alive.
When I was a happy and normal little girl, breakfast was pancakes topped with maple syrup and fresh strawberries with a book propped up on the table. When I was a happy and normal little girl, the words‘calories’ ‘ skinny’ ‘thin’ ‘fat’ were just words of vocabulary.
God, she’s skinny.
That’s more than a thousand calories in a meal, how can she eat that?!
I don’t want food I am not hungry.
I was plotting my own destruction and as time went by, memorizing how much calories there was in food got easier and easier and starving myself got easier too.
I was obsessed with becoming tiny, it was like as if a switch had been turned on and all I could think about was that I had to be skinny. If I could not be the prettiest or the smartest or the most popular girl in school, at least i would be the skinniest girl.
The day starts at dinner was like my own mantra, I restricted myself to the kinds of food that I could eat and could not eat. First it was junk food and then carbohydrates and then it was just about everything. I was not eating anything but I have never felt stronger. I am pink and shiny inside and I don’t want to pollute myself with food.
And then they sent me to hell, they stuffed me with so much food I felt I could just burst at any moment. It was a foodies’s heaven but hell for me. But I listened and ate and ate and ate and grew fat and they were happy and I was out.
But the voices did not stop. You are fat. You should not eat. Do not eat that. Don’t you want to be skinny?And down the hill I went again, back into Danger land where weigh-ins were everyday that become weigh-ins every other day that became weigh-ins every other week because nobody wanted to do it.
I was spiralling out of control but nobody was there to help me. The addiction to calorie counting and losing weight was a battle I had to fight on my own and I lost.
3rd: Wong Junmei, 14, Tanjong Katong Girls
Imperfect
I’m Imperfect. These thoughts runs through my head every time I stand in front of the mirror. I glanced at the splash of tiny brown stars imprinted across my cheeks with disappointment. I frown upon my stomach and thighs… they never seemed to get thinner. No matter how much I stopped eating, no matter how pills I ate, no matter how much I tried to vomit out the food, I would never become perfect. I would never become the ideal girl.
Soon, I began to lose appetite for food, I lost all my desires for eating although I knew I had to eat to survive. My stomach was crying out with hunger but my throat was against anything going and staying in. Everything was so painful. I’m hungry. Everything was so difficult. I’m Hungry. I’m never going to be perfect. I’m HUNGRY.
That was two years ago. A lot has changed since I met him. He taught me many things. He taught me love. He taught me how to love myself when there was no one who has ever loved me. He told me that I have to accept who I am. I have to accept myself. I have to realize that I am who I am and nothing will ever change the way I speak, the way I walk and talk, and the way I look. I have to stop chasing after those girls in magazine covers because no matter how hard I try to become like them, I will only be second place.
He taught me the great tastes of food when my tongue has been dead for so long. My tongue was alive once more and I began to eat again. Before, the world was dark and void but now, it has began to color. Flushes of pink, spots of red, specks of gold, brushes of blue and many others started appearing.
Imperfect. I’m perfect. Imperfect. The meaning of imperfect totally changes when He puts an apostrophe in between I and m. I’m perfect. He says that no one was ever made perfectly, God made a lot of mistakes, different mistakes when creating mankind so everyone would be individually unique, so that no two people are the same. God made it so that we have flaws and can live a life aiming to fill up those holes in ourselves. Flaws are present in everyone, but he reminded me that everyone is still good at something, everyone is still perfect in a way.
He also taught me that life is short. He told me that I am like a sparrow trapped inside a cage, unable to sing or fly and if I miss the chance to escape now, I will never taste the joy of freedom. I will never be able to sing or soar in the sky.
And so, I escaped.
Now, I am free of the chains binding me to my perspectives of perfection. I am free of the burdens of trying to be the perfect girl. I am free like a bird unlocked from its cage. I am free to be unique. I am free to be different from the rest. I am free to be another kind of perfect.
I am finally free to be me.
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